


Harmonics in Minor C

by kadnarim



Category: Skins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Gay Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 18:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadnarim/pseuds/kadnarim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day she turns eighteen, Emily rents a flat in Bristol - the same flat that Cassie suddenly vacated two years earlier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harmonics in Minor C

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unwoundfloors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwoundfloors/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta, present_pathos.

**one hour after**

He's there one second and they're joking and sharing spliff, and then he's gone. As Cassie stares down at the bed, and at the pool of blood and pus lying below Chris, she feels sick, and suddenly everything seems to crash down around her. She closes her eyes and tries to smile for a moment, and then turns around and walks out of the room.

It only takes a few moments to gather some things to put in her bag, and she walks quickly out of the door without looking back. Out on the street, she tries to act like nothing's wrong, like one of her best friends didn't just die in her arms. But it's no good. She starts walking faster and faster, tears blurring her eyes, until she's running, ignoring the looks she's getting.

But just as suddenly, she stops. She can't stay here, anymore, and once she's made that decision everything seems clearer. She gets money out of the purses of a few rich-looking passers-by until she has enough money for a plane ticket, and when she reaches the desk, she asks the man there for the earliest international flight.

 

 

  


**two years after**

The day she turns eighteen, Emily rents a flat in Bristol. She's never wanted to move too far away from home, not yet at least, but she needs to get away from her crazy father and her sister who won't accept her. It's the cheapest place she could find. The landlady told her she was having a hard time finding renters; some college boy died there a while back, and his flatmate left without even trying to clear anything up. The place feels seedy. But it's hers.

She finds a job waitressing to pay the rent – she's going to the University of Bristol, but she's never wanted to live on campus. She throws herself into work and studies until she's too busy to have time to dwell. Even then, every so often she'll see a girl with short blonde hair and a dodgy fashion sense, a girl that reminds her of _her_, and she freezes for a few seconds until the girl turns around and Emily can see her face. Mostly, though, she's all right, not so much forgetting as refusing to remember.

She doesn't think about what _she_ must be doing, probably studying law or politics at some top-notch university, ready to change the world.

 

 

  


  
**six months before**

When Sid and Michelle burst into the room, Cassie thinks there must be something wrong with her head. Maybe she's hallucinating from hunger again. She just can't believe that, out of all her friends, Michelle and Sid would be the ones to betray her. But eventually she realizes that there's nothing wrong with her eyes or her brain. She gets up and walks loudly through the door, ignoring Sid when he calls after her.

She can't avoid him forever, so she meets him outside and tells him it's over.

"Please, Cassie. I didn't mean to. I - I love you." Sid's got his puppy-dog face on again, and normally it's kind of sweet that he's such a hapless idiot. Right now, though, it just makes her angrier.

"What, you've just been fucking for the last week by _accident_?" she says. "Your cock did it on its own? No, Sid. You made a choice. You chose to forget about me and use Michelle instead."

Sid looks really sad now. "I know, Cassie. I'm sorry. It's just - Michelle is - "

"Michelle is the girl you've loved for years. I _know_. You think that gives you the right to cheat on me? When we got together, I never thought that you'd cheat on me. I thought you were better than that."

Cassie feels a little like punching him, or crying, but in the end she just tells him, "It's over, Sid. You don't get to be sad, or angry about that, because you fucked up. Just go. away," and he leaves.

 

 

  


**two years after, plus three months**

"_Excuse_ me? _What_ did you just say?"

Emily looks down. "Please, Naomi, just try to understand - "

"You're the one who's always been pleading with me for a closer relationship. And so I decided to trust you enough to let that happen, and now you're breaking up with me?"

"It isn't _like_ that!" Emily bites her lip. Naomi has always been more excitable than she. Not that she really blames her for being angry. "It's not like I'm breaking it off forever. I just can't deal with it - with this - right now. I've got school, and homework, and a job, and it's just too much sometimes." It isn't that she doesn't love Naomi anymore. She thinks that maybe she always will. But this is better for both of them, isn't it? She'd never want to hold Naomi back, and the other girl has never been completely comfortable being "out".

"Fuck you, Em." Naomi's eyes are shining, and it sounds like anger is the only thing holding back her tears. "You want to break up? Fine. But don't expect me to come back when you regret your decision three weeks later. You make this choice, it's forever."

"Please don't do that to me. I don't want to give you up forever." But Naomi is already turning around and leaving. Emily thinks about stopping her. Maybe if she ran after her, told her she took everything back, she could make things all right again. Instead, she sinks down onto the bus stop bench and lets the tears come.

 

 

  


  
**one hour before**

When Cassie goes to take her last A-level, it's not without a certain apprehension. And so when she finally sits down at the desk, staring at Ms. Lawes, she simply can't figure out what to do. Staring down at the page, it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

She has an hour of complete calm, where she just feels, like...totally detached, right? It's a bit like not eating, where she feels floaty and free and nothing seems to matter. But it can't last forever. Eventually, Ms. Lawes comes over and whines at her about wasting her time, and tells Cassie she's got to work on her test, only she can't, not right now.

And suddenly, somehow, they're dancing, she's _dancing_ with Ms. Lawes and she feels all right again. She can do this, she can finish the fucking test, and then she can go home again. And everything will be okay.

 

 

  


**two months after**

The first day of college goes like shit.

First, Katie fucking steals the outfit she'd carefully picked out, and she's stuck frantically pulling out clothes from her drawers, hoping that it doesn't look totally awful. Katie's awful boyfriend drives them to school, and Emily awkwardly clambers out of the backseat, feeling like an idiot. She had thought that maybe once she entered college, free from ugly school uniforms, she wouldn't feel like such a child anymore. But none of that happened. Emily is absolutely miserable.

Katie meets Effy, and Emily wants to roll her eyes, knowing there's going to be a bitch fight eventually. Katie is too attached to her queen bee status to give it up easily, and from what Emily can tell, Effy is the same. She just hopes she doesn't have to be a part of it.

And then, of course, they meet Naomi. Emily had hoped, irrationally, that somehow, Naomi just...wouldn't be there. Maybe she'd go somewhere else, go somewhere they actually like her crazy clothes and blunt outspokenness. She doesn't feel like facing her actions last summer. So she feels a certain amount of guilty relief when Katie goes off on Naomi about being gay. At least that means she hasn't figured out what really happened that night.

 

 

  


  
**three months before**

When Jal agrees to that stupid bet, it's for Chris, not for her. She kind of likes saying "no", not for the sake of it but because it keeps her saner than the rest of her friends. But while saying "no" means she fucks her life up less, Chris's saying "fuck it" fucks up his life more, and she loves him too much to let that happen. So she agrees.

And at first it goes really well. She feels so free in that club, taking things as they come, and acting totally crazy. And Chris – she can hardly believe it. He's got a job, something she always knew he could do, if only he actually tried.

So when she finds out that he's got himself a flat, she can't help herself from kissing him.

 

 

  


**two years after, plus thirteen months**

It's been a while. Too long, Emily thinks, and so she pushes away her anxiety, pulls out her phone, and calls. She hears three rings on the other end, and she's about to chicken out when it's finally picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hi. It's me," she says, "Emily," she adds, suddenly afraid that her voice won't come through over the mobile network. She doesn't want to think about the possibility that Naomi won't recognize her.

Naomi sighs. "What do you want?"

"I miss you."

The reply is sharp. "You can't fucking do that to me, Em. You broke up with me, remember?"

"I know, okay? I just...can you come over?" If she and Naomi could just see each other face to face -

"Emily..."

"_Please_."

There's a long pause. Finally, Naomi answers, "All right." Emily isn't sure what's going to happen. But maybe, somehow, things will be all right.


End file.
